


Revitalised

by 221b_hound



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bubble Bath, Gen, Season/Series 03 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 05:38:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the final events of The Empty Hearse, John takes a long soak in a bathtub fragrant with essential oils and thinks about the things that just happened. He is interrupted. Twice.</p><p>Massively spoilerific! Be warned!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Revitalised

**Author's Note:**

> I had some Empty Hearse feels to work through after watching it last night. (Thank you Hulu, and hubby for setting it up!) I've only watched it the once, so my recollection of some scenes may not be exact. Please forgive the discrepancies.
> 
> This riffs off the episode and a few of the entries in the John Watson blog.

John sighed as he lowered his aching body into the bath, the sigh rising to a moan as his slid down so that the hot, scented water lapped up to his throat, the bubbles collecting in sculpted towers around his legs and chest.

God. He ached. Muscle and mind. Not his heart, though. And considering what a cock Sherlock had been in the train car (not carriage, _car_ ) not four hours ago, that was a miracle in itself.

John, eyes closed, grinned. Sherlock Holmes: colossal twat; not dead. Fucking _brilliant_.

John had throttled, clocked and nutted his best friend in quick succession and that had been brilliant too. All the bloody talk in the world wasn’t as cathartic as watching Sherlock’s nose bleed and refusing to offer the wanker first aid.

John wafted his hands gently in the water, feeling the warm push of it over his stomach and chest. For the first time in two years he didn’t feel like he was harbouring a tiny, dense weight in there, dragging him down. He rubbed one hand over his belly, then raised his hand to rub over his bare top lip. It had taken him weeks to grow that bloody thing. He wasn’t sure he’d liked it, but it made him look different. John had needed to look different. He wasn’t the man he used to be. He needed a face that reflected the change.

Now it was gone, and he wasn’t sure for a moment if it meant he’d regressed or just returned to himself at last. Even with Mary at his side, he’d felt so adrift. No matter how he tried, it kept coming up time and again. Rereading his blogs, he could see it. _I have to move on_ , but he couldn’t. He tried, but that dead weight in his body held him back.

The weight that had been lifting and lifting in increments for days, now.

It had turned first into a fireball of fury at the restaurant with that fucking prat and his twittery little French accent and that for-fuck’s-sake drawn-on moustache. Even that look of terror on Sherlock’s fuckwit face when he realised what a cock-up he’d made of the whole thing had only stoked John’s incandescent rage. Especially when that terror translated into puerile humour as Sherlock tried to cope with having got it so very wrong.

Now John thought about it, the whole bizarre incident _was_ sort of funny. If he hadn’t been so enraged, so hurt, so utterly devastated, he might have laughed. Instead, he’d bled, metaphorically speaking. Sherlock had done the _actual_ bleeding.

Damned satisfying, that.

The great lanky pillock had persisted all evening, and tried apologising in his ham-fisted way a couple of times, but the words never got past the raging, hurting fire inside John. Mary’s own wry efforts to get him to listen didn’t get far either.

John was already caught up in Sherlock’s life again, that life he’d missed, when he’d finally let himself hear Sherlock’s final, still awkward, attempt at emotional honesty.

_I’m sorry, John, for the hurt I caused you._

And with the end at hand, he had struggled to respond with like honesty.

_You are the best and wisest man I’ve ever known. Of course I forgive you._

And then the wanker had made the big reveal. _Not dead! Nor you! Off switch! Ta-da!_

John grinned again. He thought of George Kantor, who used to make such stupid jokes and play the most ridiculous pranks after patrols, completely unable to be a grown up about how relieved he was not to have been shot or blown up, nor his mates. And John could hardly tick Sherlock off for that. John had been unable to articulate much that was actually important until he thought it was going to be the last thing he ever got to say.

Maybe they still had things to talk about, but they’d said enough. Even if Sherlock felt he had to be a manipulative wanker to give them the space for it. Sherlock couldn’t just _say_ things, any more than George Kantor could. Any more than John could, except perhaps to himself, in the safety of home and a hot bath.

John added more Rose and Rosemary essential oil to the water, the scent of it rising on the steam. It very possibly made him smell a little like a roast lamb dinner, but Mary had given it her seal of approval. Actually bought it for him. Did she like it really? Or did she just think _he_ liked it? Like that goddamned moustache? Was Rose and Rosemary essential oil just another thing he used to make himself different to the man he was when Sherlock died?

Oh, screw that. Sherlock was not dead, John _liked_ this bath oil, Mary liked Sherlock, all was right with the world.

A tap sounded on the door and it opened slightly.

“You all right there, honey?” Mary peered through the faint haze of steam.

“All good,” he replied drowsily. And he was. His aches and pains were easing off, and his heart felt light.

“Only, we have a visitor. Sherlock says he needs to talk to you.” Mary’s voice contained that wry smirk that was a hallmark of their shared sense of humour. He loved that she laughed at him like that, challenged him like that. She was a little like Sherlock, that way.

“Tell Sherlock to bugger off. I’m having a bath.”

“All right then,” Mary said, a laugh in her tone. Well, John noted, clearly she’d already figured out that Sherlock wasn’t a man to be told. John didn’t care. He wasn’t going to leap out of his bath for Sherlock Bloody Holmes. Let the little shit wait, and see how it felt.

John ran more hot water into the tub and sank further down in the water.

Moments later, the door opened.

“I said to bugger off,” he said, without heat.

“Rose and… rosemary,” observed the familiar voice, “Your choice, not Mary’s.”

“Sod off.”

“She likes it though. When she returned to the living room, she…”

“Spare me the details, you git. And fuck off. I’m having a bath.”

“I can see that.”

“And yet, you’re still here. In my bathroom. While I’m bathing.”

“You wouldn’t come down.”

“Nope. Still not. Bath. See?” John splashed the water about a bit. “Good for what ails you, baths. You should try one. Not now, you bastard.” Because Sherlock had walked up to the tub. John glared up. Sherlock grinned down.

John splashed a handful of water up and Sherlock danced back, spluttering at the face full of water and bubbles.

“John,” he said impatiently, “We need to talk. About the press. The Work.”

“No we don’t,” said John, “Not right now, at any rate. Go downstairs. Get a cup of tea. Sit on your arse for half an hour, you prick, and let me finish up, and then I’ll come down and you can talk all night if you want.”

Sherlock huffed impatiently but he dried his face on a towel – John’s towel, specifically, which he then dropped in the tub on top of John.

“Wanker,” said John, irritation failing to disguise the fondness.

“You’ll smell like a lamb roast,” said Sherlock, turning away.

“Speaking of which…” John sat up and looked at Sherlock’s back. He remembered Mary, that night: _He ran right into the flames, John. Right into the middle of the bonfire, to get you_. “I was coming round to thank you when we got distracted by the whole gunpowder, treason and plot thing. So. Thank you. For pulling me out of the fire.”

Sherlock, back still to John, waved a hand dismissively. “I was hardly going to let you burn _now_. After everything.”

John’s grin bloomed broad, then softened.

“Five minutes,” said Sherlock sternly, still not looking at him.

“When I’m bloody ready,” countered John, knowing he’d stretch it out to fifteen, just to make the point.

“Fifteen minutes, John, really? Isn’t that a little childish?”

John pitched a sponge at the back of Sherlock’s head. _Bullseye._ Nice.

Sherlock dug his fingers into his scalp and ruffled his hair back into shape and without turning, strode out the door and closed it behind him.

John decided to stay in the tub for ten more minutes as his best compromise.

He stood and let the water stream off him, let the past stream off him, his muscles less aching now. Everything aching less, in fact. Body, mind, spirit.

 _Sherlock lives_ , John thought.

 _John Watson lives too_ , he realised.

Then he realised his towel was soaking wet. He opened the door and shouted down the stairs: “Sherlock Holmes, you’re a complete bastard!”

From below, he heard both Sherlock and Mary laugh in response.

In revenge, he dried himself on Mary’s bathrobe before getting dressed and joining the two of them downstairs. He picked up Sherlock’s scarf from the rack and very deliberately dried his hair with it in front of them before dangling the wet scarf in front of Sherlock’s affronted expression and then dropping the thing in Sherlock’s lap.

“So,” John said, grinning, taking his seat, “What’s the press strategy?”


End file.
